In Which A Miley Cyrus Concert Changes Everything

The Shrew Who Couldn't Be Tamed

by COURTNEY NICHOLS

Remember the Miley Cyrus of yesteryear? With her Wild West aesthetic and her pronounced faith in God, Miley Cyrus maintained a Disney Channel demeanor of purity and poise. Her act might have seemed contrived, but at least she was consistent. That Miley Cyrus has gone up in flames.

Allow me to introduce you to the new, mature, slutty, pleather wearing Miley Cyrus. On June 21st, The House of Blues on Sunset Boulevard welcomed the nearly legal pop sensation. It was apparent the crowd included the original Miley fans. Unable to walk in stilettos and pleated miniskirts, their young adult bodies still seem suited for bedazzled Capri jeans and rolly back backs they sported when Miley Cyrus first became a household name 5 years ago.

Having gone to the event with my mother and two friends over the age of 22, we were subject to pre-teen stares of confusion that burned deep into the soul. Thank god we could drink. Everyone else was just drunk on Miley.

If a Los Angeles event is judged by the importance of the celebrities that attend, then this concert was surely a Z-list event. Besides the MTV VJ Kudus who introduced the performance, Lance Bass was hiding in the sound booth and Miley’s sister Noah was escorted through the crowd.

At 7:15 the festivities began. First Kudus attempted to energize the audience both at the HOB and those watching from home. Then they repeatedly projected the same lackluster interview Miley did for MTV a couple days before. Finally, the curtains drew and there stood Miley, wearing a studded belt over skintight black pants and a leotard leaving her hips exposed, and a silver necklace of an arrow pointing straight to her vagina.

She began her set with “Can’t Be Tamed.” I hate to admit it, but I was somewhat impressed. Though the staging was a disaster, her vocal range far surpassed most pop icons (with the exception of Xtina). It was apparent from her posture and the choreography that Billy Ray forced her to emulate Kristen Stewart’s portrayal of Joan Jett from The Runaways.

This belief was confirmed when she did a cover of “Cherry Bomb” halfway through her set. During which time I was forced to trace the borders of the room attempting to calm my cultural panic attack.

A list of adult movements Miley exhibited? She faux kissed a girl, she repeatedly gyrated and groped her lower regions, and she belted “shit” twice! I was loving it. I don’t think the parents shared in my enthusiasm. As expected, her set only lasted 40 minutes, but the real treasure trove of surprises waited outside.

As the valet line began to backup around the block, a girl with a church appropriate outfit of a pale pink skirt and bleached blonde hair was held in a cop car demanding, “I just want Miley!” Suddenly, the car door flung open as she threw up onto the sidewalk. In a moment of fury, she fell out of the car and began to crab walk down the road until her boyfriend insisted they lay down on the sloped concrete. Thank god for videophones. Thank god for videophones. Though Billy Ray and his posse were now directly behind us, it was definitely this obsessive fan that stole the show.

In conclusion? I wasn’t drunk enough. I don’t think I could have ever been drunk enough. My only hope is that one day, those Miley fans will wonder, “Who originally wrote that Cherry Bomb song?” and subsequently be exposed to an entire musical genre consisting of teenage rebellion. Only one thing is certain: that image of arrow-to-vagina will forever haunt my dreams.

Courtney Nichols is a contributor to This Recording. This is her first appearance in these pages. You can find her website here.

"Midnight Music" - The Runaways (mp3)

"Born to Be Bad" - The Runaways (mp3)

"Take It Or Leave It" - The Runaways (mp3)

In Which We Receive Heartwarming Reports of Nabokov's Kindness

The Good Times Are Killing Me

I have always had a number of parts lined up in case the muse failed. A lepidopterist exploring fabulous jungles came first. Then there was the chess grand master, then the tennis ace with an unreturnable service, then the goalie saving a historical shot, and finally, finally, the author of a pile of unknown writings - Pale Fire, Lolita, Ada - that my heirs discover and publish.

- Vladimir Nabokov in a 1977 BBC interview

...turning to the title-page butterfly, its head is that of a small tortoise, and its pattern that of a common Cabbage White butterfly (whereas the insect in my poem is clearly described as belonging to a group of small blue butterflies with dotted undersides), which is as meaningless...as would be a picture of a tuna fish on the jacket of Moby Dick. I want to be quite clear and frank: I have nothing against stylization, but I do object to stylized ignorance.

- Nabokov, 1959 to publisher

I do have a story for you - but it is still in my head; quite complete, however; ready to emerge; the pattern showing through the wingcases of the pupa.

- Nabokov, 1946 letter to Katharine A. White

June 12, 1951

Dear Irofessor Finley,

Many t anks for your delig tful letter. Yes, I think would be able to arrange a course of t e general tyoe you suggest, orovided you allow me some individual latitude. In my lectures I emo asize t e artistic side of literature. I visualize a course t at would not clas wit your conceot of t e connections between narrative genres. It would deal wit questions of structure, develooment of tec nique, t emes (in t e sense of 't ematic lines"), and imagery and magic and style. I certainly could link uo to my study of nineteent century fiction wit t ematic lines running t rough such initial masteroices as t e Iliad or te Slovo; but my main ouroose would be to analyze suc artistic structures as Mansfield Iark (and its fairy-tale oattern), Bleak ouse (and its c ild-and-bird t eme), Anna Karenin (and its dream-and-deat symbols), ten t e "transformatino" t eme, as old as t e oldest myt s, in one lumo consisting of t ree stories (Gogol's Overcoat, Stevenson's Jekyll and yde and Kafka's Metamoro sis), and finally the jardins suoerooses of Iroust's style in is first volume Swann's Way. If t is is too muc, eit er Bleak or Mansfield may be sacrificed. It seems to me t at t is orogram does not really deviate from yours since in the long run it deals with t e istorical evolution of symbols, of images, of ways of seeing t ings and conveying one's vision. After all, Homer, and Flaubert, and Gogol, and Dickens, and Iroust are all members of my family. I only hooe t at t e "added stiooend" will be adequate - if, of course, my course outline meets with your aooroval.

In any case I am looking forward to seeing a lot of you and Harry Levin next soring.

Sincerely yours,

Vladimir Nabokov

I.S. T is tyoewriter is falling aoart but a new one is on its way.

Dear James Laughlin,

Would you be interested in publishing a timebomb that I have finished putting together? It is a novel of 459 typewritten pages.

If you would like to see it, the following precautions would have to be observed:

First of all, I would have to have your word that you alone would read it. Everything else could be settled later. You would further have to give me an address where the MS could reach you personally and directly. This is a very serious matter for me, as you will understand after reading the work.

Sincerely,

Vladimir Nabokov

Laughlin was out of the country and unable to read the typescript of Lolita.

March 12, 1955

Dear Mr. Epstein,

Here is a short list of works which ought to be retranslated and which might be presented in the following form:

I. A volume which might be titled "Three Duels", and which would contain:

Pushkin's THE PISTOL SHOT

Lermontov's PRINCESS MARY

Chehov's THE SINGLE COMBAT.

2. "Three Fantasies"  - a trio of fantastic tales -

Pushkin's THE QUEEN OF SPADES

Gogol's THE NOSE

Doestoevski's THE DOUBLE (by far the best thing Dostoevski ever wrote)

My favorite project, however, is Lermontov's THE HERO OF OUR TIME, a novel consisting of five stories (of which PRINCESS MARY is one).

If you are interested in any of these works, I shall explain in more detail what is wrong with the old translations (for instance, with Yarmonlinski's "The Pistol Shot" or Guerney's "The Queen of Spades"). My protege is none other than my son who will be graduated from Harvard this spring. He is a young Russian scholar and a budding American author in his own right. He has done some very creditable translations for me, and I would undertake to control and revise and work on the lines suggested here.

Sincerely yours,

Vladimir Nabokov

1955 corrections to the manuscript of LolitaNovember 28th, 1964

Dear Mr. Hitchcock,

Many thanks for your letter. I find both your ideas very interesting. The first would present many difficulties for me because I do not know enough about American security matters or methods, or how the several intelligence bureaus work, separately and together.

Your second idea is quite acceptable to me. Given a complete freedom (as I assume you intend to give me) I think I could turn it into a screenplay. But there would be a matter of time. What delays did you have in mind? I am at the present very busy winding up several things at once. I could devote some thought to the screenplay this summer but could hardly settle down to work on it yet. Please let me know what are your ideas about this.

In the meantime, I, too, would like to give you a short resume of two ideas of my own. You will find them, very badly jotted down, on the separate sheet attached to this letter. Please let me know what you think of them. If you like them, we might discuss their development.

It was good talking to you on the telephone.

With best wishes,

Sincerely yours,

Vladimir Nabokov

I.

A girl, a rising star of not quite the first magnitude, is courted by a budding astronaut. She is slightly condescending to him; has an affair with him but may have other lovers, or lover, at the same time. one day he is sent on the first expedition to a distant star; goes there and makes a successful return. Their positions have not changed. He is the most famous man in the country while her starrise has come to a stop at a moderate level. She is only too glad to have him now, but soon she realizes that he is not the same as he was before his flight. She cannot make out what the change is. Time goes, and she becomes concerned, then frightened, then panicky. I have more than one interesting denouement for this plot.

Hitchcock replied that this idea was not in his genre.

II.

While ignorant of the workings of American intelligence, I have gathered considerable information regarding those of the Soviets.

For some time now I have been thinking of writing the story of a defector from behind the Iron Curtain to the United States. The constant danger he is in, the constant necessity to hide and be on the lookout for agents from his native land bent on kidnapping or killing him.

I would have this man meet a benevolent American couple who would offer him the security of their Western ranch. But these would turn out to belong to certain pro-Soviet organizations and would betray him to his pursuers. I have in mind some marvellous scenes at the ranch and a very tragic ending.

Hitchcock responded that this idea had been used for The Iron Curtain (1948).

Download the unabridged audiobook of Lolita here.

Although Vladimir Nabokov was the precise master of the letter and one of the great letter writers in all of literature, he was often at his most humorous in short replies, even to people he didn't know very well. Here are some of the best of those messages and telegrams.

with Vera in Switzerland in 1966December 31th, 1956

to: GRAHAM GREENE

Dear Mr. Greene,

From various friends I keep receiving heart-warming reports on your kindness to my books. This is New Year's Eve, and I feel I would like to talk to you.

My poor Lolita is having a rough time. The pity is that if I had made her a boy, or a cow, or a bicycle, Philistines might never have flinched. On the other hand, Olympia Press informs me that amateurs (amateurs!) are disappointed with the turn my story takes in the second volume, and do not buy it. I have been sent copies of the article, in which, about a year ago, a Mr. Gordon with your witty assistance made such a fool of himself. It would seem, however, that a clean vulgar mind makes Gordon's wonderfully strong, for my French agent tells me that the book (the English original) is now banned by governmental decree in France. She says: "La réponse de James Gordon à l'article de M. Graham Greene à indigne certains puritains et...c'est le Gouvernement anglais qui à demande au Ministre de l'Intérieur (of France) de prendre cette décision."

This is an extraordinary situation. I could patter on like this till next year. Wishing you a very happy New one, I remain

Vladimir Nabokov

Greene had named Lolita one of the best books of 1955.

March 24th, 1957

to: PROF. MARK SCHORER

Dear Schorer,

I shall be glad to make my contribution to the D.H. Lawrence Fellowship Fund, although, between you and me, I dislike Lawrence as a writer and detest Taos, where, in 1954, I had the misfortune of establishing my headquarters when collecting butterflies in the N. Mexico mountains.

I would like you to know how much I appreciated your eyespot on Pnin's underwing.

Véra and I remember with pleasure our meetings with you and your wife in Cambridge.

Sincerely yours,

Vladimir Nabokov

January 16th, 1961 

to: DMITRI NABOKOV

I have interrupted my literary labors to compose this instructive little jingle:

In Italy, for his own good,

A wolf must wear a Riding Hood

Please bear this in mind.

Love,

Father

The Nabokovs were concerned with their son's romantic misadventures in Italy.

October 9th, 1965

to: LYNDON B. JOHNSON

WISHING YOU A PERFECT RECOVERY AND A SPEEDY RETURN TO THE ADMIRABLE WORK YOU ARE ACCOMPLISHING

The president had undergone surgery.

this illustration by nabokov appeared in the letters section of playboyJanuary 14th, 1967

to: HUGH M. HEFNER and A.C. SPECTORSKY

Dear Mr. Hefner and Mr. Spectorsky,

I want to thank you warmly for the many kindnesses - the good wishes, the beautiful cigarette box, the album in which I was pleased to find myself represented, and the 500 doll. bonus. I apologize for being so late with my thanks and my own New Year wishes of happiness and prosperity for yourselves and for Playboy. I was submerged in work some of which had to be finished by Christmas but was not.

I always enjoy reading Playboy, and the latest issue was especially entertaining and informative.

Cordially yours,

Vladimir Nabokov

February 1967

to: Encounter

I welcome Freud's "Woodrow Wilson" not only because of its comic appeal, which is great, but because that surely must be the last rusty nail in the Viennese Quack's coffin.

Vladimir Nabokov

November 11th, 1967

to: INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE

Dear Paper,

For obvious reasons I refuse to tell you, in answer to your questionnaire, what brand of cigarettes my cousin smokes, nor can I divulge my "choice of shipping methods", or the price of my wristwatch. However: I like you very much, and here are four suggested improvements that would increase my affection.

1. Splash U.S. successes with a little more enthusiasm.

2. Reestablish the Monday stock exchange tables for the past week.

3. Consign, at once and for keeps, Mrs. Sawyer to a mental asylum (this will give everybody more elbow room)

4. Cut out the pop art (Chag et al) and replace it by a Book Review page once a week.

Faithfully yours,

Old Reader

Vladimir Nabokov

March 17th, 1965

to: PLAYBOY

DEAR PLAYBOY ADA FRAGMENTS BEAUTIFULLY PRINTED BUT GOODNESS WHAT ILLUSTRATIONS THAT IMPROBABLE YOUNG MAMMAL AND TWO REVOLTING FROGS

The above was a holograph sent to his wife Véra on their fiftieth anniversary. It was inscribed on a 2" x 4" section cut from a checked index card, perhaps attached to a present, and illustrated with a beautiful iridescent butterfly. It reads, "Here we are at last, my darling."

"Even Judas Gave Jesus A Kiss" - !!! (mp3)

"The Most Certain Sure" - !!! (mp3)

"Jamie, My Intentions Are Bass" - !!! (mp3)

In Which We Are Really Disappointed In David Simon

Dark Legacy

by ELEANOR MORROW

True Blood

creator Alan Ball

It is known to be impossible to write about The Wire. What is there to say about art that claims to be portraying every aspect of life?

There is little space for audience participation in The Wire. Most of The Sopranos ended up being sly jokes and interpretive fun for the viewers; the kind of drama that inspires discussion in order to resolve its dilemmas. Lost required a lot of googling. The Wire required nothing of you. During The Wire, the cops were always complaining that no one got to see their point of view of what things were really like. This was extremely ironic, since the police are the subject and heroes of The Wire, with the drug dealers following shortly behind. Someone also had to win during Stalingrad.

you guys...barbershop quartet??? After watching The Wire in its entirety, there is really only one appropriate response - to look at the Baltimore skyline, and think about why it really had to go down like that, and if Stringer Bell is looking at us all from heaven. My least favorite parts of The Wire are the recurring images of the city, which makes it all the more strange that David Simon would feel the need to make a series composed entirely of just that without changing any of the cast.

Lester got with that hooker, and everything was great, and now this But it's not just the excruciating/compelling Treme that has followed in the large footsteps of serial television's signature achievement. Although The Wire believes it knows everything about its subject (and it may be right), its fake adherence to a convincing portrait of reality masked its storytelling weaknesses. Show a young, African-American kid who doesn't want to be a drug dealer, but is. Demonstrate the untimely death of this person. Sob, rinse, repeat. The Wire got away with this because, hey, that's Baltimore.

how dare you try benko's opening motherfucker As the opening scene of a light fictional documentary about the drug trade, bottoms up. As the opener to the new season of Desperate Housewives, incredibly lazy storytelling. The Wire had its most devoted audience among television writers, many of whom have adopted its techniques and adapted them for other dramatic subjects. But there's a big diffference between pretending something that never really happened, and pretending something that supposedly did.

This can turn out well, as in the groundbreaking way Breaking Bad uses the techniques of fiction and documentary to maintain its crazy diegesis. And it can also turn to complete chaos, which brings us to the long-awaited third season of True Blood. No less than eighty-seven characters are featured this season, an astonishing feat when you realize six major characters died in the run-up to the end of last season. I had strongly hoped Lizzy Caplan would also be dead in Party Down so I wouldn't have to watch her reluctantly make out with Adam Scott for the twentieth straight episode. (They did the same thing with Michael Imperioli to make him seem less gay.)

should you really be taking away from Ken Marino's screen time? The first two seasons of True Blood were slightly altered versions of Charlaine Harris' mediocre Louisiana mysteries. Now that Harris is so rich that she bought Nicolas Cage's home in New Orleans just in case Alan Ball wanted it for a set, she doesn't give two shits about Alan's ideas for changing her books. This is actually well and good, because it took Harris about five minutes (most of it spent looking at True Blood gifs) to come up with the stunningly dreadful plots of these beauties. While the books primarily focus on Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) as the primary locus for all that occurs, she's just a blonde observer on the television show.

Harris' mind-reader Sookie Stackhouse never actually reads minds anymore, but that's OK. She gets a second chance to do vampires the right way this time, now that Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer got married between seasons. Have you ever seen the part in Hannah & Her Sisters where that old guy lectures Barbara Hershey about the Holocaust documentary he watched? Their marriage is like that, but with more tolerance for elective plastic surgery. Bill Compton's facelift made his mug tighter than Eric Northman's stomach.

remember bonanza? keep remembering it for another minute  Besides the protagonist, here is the tentative list of major characters on the show, along with whether they have a convincing accent: Hoyt (no), Jessica (no), Sam (no), Tara (no), Lorena (no), Tara's mom (no), Andy (no), Jason (no), the Queen of Louisiana (no), the Magister (no), Pam (no), Eric (no), the British vampire (no), Bill (no), Arlene (no), Alfre Woodard (no), Bud (no), Terry (no), and Lafayette (yes). And I have not even included any of the werewolves.

you will always be an integral member of 'Newsradio' Khandi  There haven't been this many terrible accents on one television show since...The Wire. Like True Blood, The Wire was more likely to ruin an actor's chances of success in another role than help his chances. The reason for this is simple: casting relative unknowns into major roles has its benefits for the audience, but the realistic and more importantly lengthy presentation means that Bunk Moreland is forever Baltimore's best homicide detective. He's not some musician who used to be married to Khandi Alexander. Likewise, I don't believe that John Goodman knows anything about New Orleans. In fact, I know he doesn't.

then I did Blues Brothers 2000, which was perhaps something of a misstep In this third season, Ball's version of the old story involves (shock!) conflict between vampires and werewolves. This is a really sad way for Stephenie Meyer to discover that she didn't create this dichotomy. The true story is that she just watched Underworld really late at night and assumed it was a very creative dream she was having. This is not to say we can't still enjoy what True Blood has become, more gif than mere show.

Alexander Skarsgard hasn't shown this much of his body since Coachella, and he's about to embark on a tryst with Sookie that will leave them both changed forever. As we know from the sensual and caring sex dream Sam Merlotte had about Bill Compton, after you've digested a vampire's blood, he haunts your dreams, and usually after a solid haunt, he asks for money.

What role is Skarsgard possibly going to be able to play after this show other than the villain in Gus Van Zant's shot-for-shot Die Hard remake? He's going to be Eric Northman forever.

This is why, when The Wire started getting a teensy bit bogged down by its enormous cast of characters, it could have really used a spinoff. Would anyone be disappointed that Omar had moved to West Hollywood and was still robbing drug dealers, only with a more fabulous attitude? After so much promotion that there was actually promotion of the promotion, new viewers of True Blood might be shy to handle 40 protagonists with about two antagonists.

meredith, may I just say - you look GREAT Granted, it's no fun to have shows that relentlessly re-explain their premises. (All discerning people are still wondering if Ellen Pompeo realized they recast her part while she was still on Grey's Anatomy.) It is, however, worse to have a show that is incapable of explaining its original premise. I would need an L Word-style flow chart to keep track of who on the show has drunken vampire blood and can sense their feelings. This week's episode introduced about seven antagonists, none of whom were successful at harming or even unnerving the protagonists.

But whatever, as long as you're going to be campy, and spend half your time making inside jokes to ONTD, you should have Bill Compton ride off on the white stallion of the Queens of Mississippi. And I can't say I don't enjoy it when Bill growls and lights his maker on fire, or that I won't enjoy it when Jason Stackhouse gets bitten by Calvin Norris and turns into a werekitten. If we flashback to Eric Northman saving Anne Frank and killing John Lennon I'm going to have to respectfully switch the hour per week I spend on this show to gardening. True Blood has so much going on, that if you get bored, you can just wait for the next thing.

Eleanor Morrow is the senior contributor to This Recording. She is a writer living in Manhattan. She last wrote in these pages about Elmore Leonard and Justified.

"Simian Fever" - Six Finger Satellite (mp3)

"Pulling A Train" - Six Finger Satellite (mp3)

"White Queen to Black Knight" - Six Finger Satellite (mp3)

Loving You Always Omar

ATTORNEY: Mr. Little, how does a man rob drug dealers for eight or nine years and live to tell about it?

OMAR: Day at a time I suppose?